4 Get root Privileges

After the reboot you can login with your previously created username (e.g. administrator). Because we must run all the steps from this tutorial with root privileges, we can either prepend all commands in this tutorial with the string sudo, or we become root right now by typing

5 Install The SSH Server (Optional)

If you did not install the OpenSSH server during the system installation, you can do it now:

aptitude install ssh openssh-server

From now on you can use an SSH client such as PuTTY and connect from your workstation to your Ubuntu 10.10 server and follow the remaining steps from this tutorial.

6 Install vim-nox (Optional)

I'll use vi as my text editor in this tutorial. The default vi program has some strange behaviour on Ubuntu and Debian; to fix this, we install vim-nox:

aptitude install vim-nox

(You don't have to do this if you use a different text editor such as joe or nano.)

7 Configure The Network

Because the Ubuntu installer has configured our system to get its network settings via DHCP, we have to change that now because a server should have a static IP address. Edit /etc/network/interfaces and adjust it to your needs (in this example setup I will use the IP address 192.168.0.100):

8 Edit /etc/apt/sources.list And Update Your Linux Installation

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list. Comment out or remove the installation CD from the file and make sure that the universe and multiverse repositories are enabled. It should look like this:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

#
# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 10.10 _Maverick Meerkat_ - Release i386 (20101007)]/ maverick main restricted
#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 10.10 _Maverick Meerkat_ - Release i386 (20101007)]/ maverick main restricted
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick main restricted
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick main restricted
## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates main restricted
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates main restricted
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any
## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick universe
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick universe
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates universe
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates universe
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick multiverse
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates multiverse
## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-backports main restricted universe multiverse
## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner
## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Ubuntu's
## 'extras' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party
## developers who want to ship their latest software.
# deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick main
# deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick main
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick-security multiverse

Then run

aptitude update

to update the apt package database and

aptitude safe-upgrade

to install the latest updates (if there are any). If you see that a new kernel gets installed as part of the updates, you should reboot the system afterwards:

reboot

9 Change The Default Shell

/bin/sh is a symlink to /bin/dash, however we need /bin/bash, not /bin/dash. Therefore we do this:

dpkg-reconfigure dash

Install dash as /bin/sh?<-- No

If you don't do this, the ISPConfig installation will fail.

10 Disable AppArmor

AppArmor is a security extension (similar to SELinux) that should provide extended security. In my opinion you don't need it to configure a secure system, and it usually causes more problems than advantages (think of it after you have done a week of trouble-shooting because some service wasn't working as expected, and then you find out that everything was ok, only AppArmor was causing the problem). Therefore I disable it (this is a must if you want to install ISPConfig later on).